Mystery of the missing radio star
He is a close friend of Niall Horan and his Breakfast Show with Doireann Garrihy has won high praise, yet two weeks ago 2FM presenter Eoghan McDermott took unplanned leave and is now quitting the station where he is considered one of its brightest talents. Nobody will say why
EOGHAN MCDERMOTT was considered a rising star with a bright broadcasting future in his sights. But his sudden departure this week has left his 2FM listeners in the dark – and his co-presenter with an on-air gap to fill. The 37-year-old Dubliner has worked in broadcasting for most of his career, making an early name for himself on the successful pop music station Spin FM. He did a stint in London, becoming friendly with Niall Horan and other up and coming Irish stars. Having worked his way up, McDermott started to make waves and his quirky ways and youth captured the attention of RTÉ.
He very quickly became omnipresent – popping up on radio, , presenting a spin-off show to The Voice reality talent show and taking on other flagship RTÉ offerings.
A deep thinker, but also light-hearted, McDermott had an edge over his peers in that he brought some intellectual credibility to the station. As younger audiences became more invested in political and cultural events, Eoghan pipped his young presenting peers as
Chatty Eoghan remained stoically silent
he could do more than discuss celebrities or playact the jocular disc jockey.
But despite finding a home in 2FM, there was always a sense that McDermott was never quite at ease in his position.
This week, RTÉ announced that Eoghan had ‘suddenly departed the station after six years’. No further explanation was provided, there wasn’t the usual farewell playout, as is the tradition when someone hangs up their mic. As his swift departure played out in public, the usually chatty Eoghan remained stoically silent about his departure.
McDermott’s shock exit comes more than a year after the Irish Mail on Sunday reported that he had handed in his notice in January 2020 and was destined for Australia.
He had previously been able to work on Love Island Australia as the voiceover guy – the role Iain Stirling, Laura Whitmore’s new husband, made his own on this side of the world.
In January 2020, several very well-placed sources told the MoS that McDermott, who had been co-hosting the early morning show on RTÉ 2FM with Doireann Garrihy since summer 2019, informed his bosses at Mon-remained trose that he was leaving the slot and was preparing to embark on new opportunities overseas.
His surprise decision to leave at that stage left station bosses in a bit of bother, as they had just splashed out a ‘not inconsiderable sum’ of money on a media campaign for the new Breakfast with Eoghan and Doireann radio show.
Crucially, the pairing of seasoned broadcaster Eoghan McDermott and funnywoman Doireann Garrihy had been viewed as a winning formula.
While Eoghan has been in broadcasting and an RTÉ rising star for some years now, Doireann is a relative newcomer to radio but together they made the slot their own.
Eoghan’s departure is sure to be a shock for all involved, especially Doireann, as he previously revealed it was his brainwave for the pair to join forces on air
‘I went to Doireann and said, “We’ve done bits together and, while fleetingly, they have always been good.” Then Doireann went on to do great things and so we put a pilot together.
‘The pilot went well and we submitted it. The turnaround time from them saying, “we like it” to actually going on air was very short, so we had that initial fleeting worry, “oh, God, I hope beyond the pilot, we actually get on”.’
It seemed that their partnership was paying off as their first
JNLR figures showed they were pulling in a large listenership, with 135,000 tuning in on weekday mornings after they took over the early morning slot as part of a 2FM schedule change.
Garrihy’s social media clout was a big draw for bosses at 2FM, as they were keen to attract the lucrative 20-29 year old market who have cash to spend.
She said: ‘I think I would be silly to assume a large part of the reason I was brought in wasn’t [her following ]. I understand that it is.’
Expensive advert campaigns were rolled out with images of Eoghan and Doireann with the hope of attracting more listeners.
So his January 2020 announcement left bosses more than a little annoyed.
At the time – while officially saying it did not comment on individual contracts – the broadcaster also said it wasn’t in a position to deny that Mr McDermott was leaving the station.
The MoS firmly established that he was planning to leave and, for months, McDermott silent and never acted to dispute the story nor the substance of the article.
Since the story of his departure broke last year, McDermott didn’t use his own radio show or massive social media reach to dispel the story – as a plethora of presenters threw their mic in the ring to take over his coveted show.
Indeed, so sure were people that news soon leaked that RTÉ bosses had drawn up a shortlist of possible replacements, with big boss Dan Healy understood to be leading the hunt for a new colleague to brighten up mornings alongside Doireann.
‘I don’t know about you, but if people were publicly after my job, I’d let it be well-known far and wide that it wasn’t there for the taking,’ said an industry source.
Eoghan’s surprise decision in early 2020 sent 2FM bosses scrambling for a replacement as he was slated to leave ‘imminently’.
However six months later, in a curious case of ‘should I stay or should I go’ McDermott revealed that he was staying put in his 2FM radio chair.
In June, as the first coronavirus wave eased and Australia had closed its borders, Eoghan told RSVP Live that he had signed a new contract and, bizarrely, added that he had never intended to leave, saying he ‘had no idea where the story came from’.
He also added that the first time he heard about it was when it was printed, despite the fact he had received and read numerous text messages before the publication of the MoS story – and passed them on to RTÉ to respond on his behalf.
This graceless attempt to put the cat back in the bag looks even more surprising in retrospect, given events this week and his mysterious departure a mere nine months later.
The sudden change has left people scratching their heads as it comes mere months after he said he loved his job.
He also seemed happy on the home front, despite living apart from his doctor girlfriend Aoife Melia due to Covid safety concerns.
Ms Melia works as a GP in Dublin and the couple decided to eliminate any risk of contracting Covid-19.
Both Ms Melia and her younger sister Dearbhla are frontline workers and that came with its difficulties for Eoghan and Aoife’s relationship.
He said: ‘Aoife and her little sister Dearbhla, who was in Covid-19 triage at St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin, were living together in lockdown because they were seeing patients.
‘We both have jobs we really like’
She has handled it all really well.
‘We have both acknowledged how lucky we are, we both have jobs we really like and both of our families are safe and well.’
Eoghan and Aoife, who began dating again in 2016 having been childhood sweethearts, had been living together in his south Dublin home.
Late last year McDermott, who had landed a coveted gig as the voice of Love Island Australia in 2 0 1 8 , for which he earned rave reviews, said any plans to return to the series were on hold as he again quashed reports he was leaving RTÉ, just months before his sudden exit.
‘I am just waiting to hear. It is all up in the air,’ he said. ‘They were looking at filming it in Australia, on the Gold Coast and they were happy with that as a plan.
‘The borders are still closed for non-nationals and it is all over the place. There has been no decision either way, so I am in the dark, sitting pretty.’
Separately, another complication was the addition of a pet to the family just a few months ago, which landed him in a spot of controversy.
McDermott initially claimed his puppy was bought from a ‘lovely little lady’ and had come after a year-long shelter search failed to find him and his girlfriend Aoife their perfect furry little friend.
But doubts were raised online as to the provenence of his puppy. Speaking to the MoS, Eoghan said, that he was disappointed to learn later that he had been duped by a ‘friendly grandmother’ who had no problem passing off a puppy-farmed dog as a family-born pet.
‘It was pre the Covid dog explosion and I had moved to breakfast and I had a good chunk of the day free and have been looking to get a dog for years,’ he said.
McDermott found Rua on dogs.ie, advertised as being from a family-reared pet ‘who had puppies in need of a home’ and paid €1,500 for the mixed-breed puppy.
‘So, in the meantime, we really wanted a dog so we found a dog on dogs.ie and they proclaimed loud and proud in their about section that they don’t take ads from puppy farmers,’ he explained.
Armed with a checklist of telltale signs, Eoghan was directed to a house in Wicklow where he met with a ‘lovely grandmother’.
‘We went down to the house to see it, we met it in the house. We went through the checklist of things that you are supposed to do. They were really friendly.
‘The tells that I had been given on how to identify a breeder is they’ll never give you the home address, they will try meet you in a car park. They’ll maybe say the mommy is sick. So none of those were present and it came from a website that say they don’t do puppy farms. So we took it as good, this is a family dog, it’s been ethically born. The lady was telling us about her grandkids, how they play with the dog every day, it all felt just really lovely in itself. She had all the documentation stamped by the local vet. She gave us the form to sign and say she’d send if off and it would go from being registered from “our family to your family”.
‘She just seemed like a nice lady who had a dog and it was a family pet and the mom was there and that was it,’ he said.
They posted it to Instagram and someone then asked him where he got the dog.
‘Then someone said that breed and a few breeds like that and a few others breeds are prime breeds for commercial breeders. So I gave this lady the information I had and she came back and said, “Found this person. They are registered in Wicklow as a dog breeder and this dog was bred for profit.” So that was really disappointing. We had been looking in shelters for about a year, then when we did go look we took on face value on dogs.ie that they don’t do this type of sale. We are going to shower our dog with love but, like a lot of people, if we had of known in advance, we maybe wouldn’t have bought that dog.’
Previously, McDermott was in the news for more than his role as a presenter when he was randomly assaulted on St Stephen’s Night in 2016 – an assault which was later the subject of an RTÉ documentary.
Describing the assault, for which nobody was ever identified or charged, McDermott said he was left for dead in a Dublin suburban street after he was ‘sucker-punched’ from behind and hit his head on concrete.
More recently, Eoghan led the charge of the #bekind movement in Ireland.
In the wake of the suicide of presenter Caroline Flack, McDermott accused many forces of contributing to the star’s passing.
‘Absolutely shook. How utterly awful. Serious reflection and soulsearching to do by editors, journalists, advertisers and legislators. The glee with which she was pursued by the s*** rags was apparent for all to see. I only met Caroline a handful of times but she was the best kind of maniacal energy and always smiling. Shocked. Disgusted. Devastated. Rest In Peace Caroline x.’
He also discussed the myth that just because you’re in the public eye, that you’re shielded from the hate, that there is, ‘this misconception that as your level of profile rises your ability to insulate yourself from that kind of nastiness rises’.
His public profile and pronouncements also earned him a guest slot on the Late Late Show with Ryan Tubridy. It was a display of how bright his own star had shone. Only to be mysteriously eclipsed this week.
‘I am in the dark, sitting pretty’